Preview

An Experiment by Nancy Sommers on the Difference in Revision between Student Writers and Experienced Writers

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
462 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
An Experiment by Nancy Sommers on the Difference in Revision between Student Writers and Experienced Writers
Sommers says that the language students use to describe revision is about vocabulary, suggesting that they “understand the revision process as a rewording activity”.
How is that different from the way she argues that revision should be understood?

Nancy Sommers studies the problem of revision between students writers and more experienced writers. Those writers who are students focus more on the revision as fixing small errors and textual repetition, when more experienced writers focus on revision more generally, not only on the repetition of the words, but also on the repetition of the concept and ideas. This allows to the writers to do not get stack on superficial errors and let their ideas flow on the paper and to get across to the audience.

Nancy Sommers focuses on the importance of differentiating in revision between students and more advanced experienced writers. By doing a case study Nancy was able to study the problem. She proceeded by acquiring twenty freshmen students from Boston University and twenty more advanced adult journalists and overall academic writers in order to compare revision. With her experiment set, Sommers set out to discover the difference in interpretations of revision strategies between students and experienced adult writers. As Sommers explains, revising is the last step in the writing process, one that comes after both the first and second drafts. This means that revision comes only after having prewritten once, and written a paper twice. Because two drafts come before revision, revision can be interpreted as only small superficial mistakes, or more deep conceptual mistakes. With her experiment complete, Sommers had unveiled the mystery behind the interpretation of revision. Nancy Sommers discovered that to those writers who were students, revision simply meant going back and fixing small errors, such as repetition of words. This repetition does not include the repeating of ideas but only the repetition of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In elementary and middle school, we were all taught to write first drafts before writing our final copies. Teachers would tell us it is important to take the time to write and organize our thoughts and ideas before writing a final copy. I would never complete this step. I was usually one of the students that would spend my time writing to just get the writing done. Then, I would look over it quickly and correct only few parts. My “first draft” would usually end up being my final draft. I have never enjoyed writing and have never really liked my own writing. My writing was never the one talked about by teachers or ever given a good grade. I would never bother fixing my first draft because I never thought I could make it into a good quality paper. Lamott describes a brilliant writer sitting down and writing a polished piece of work in one sitting and then goes on to explain how that never happens. I found that really comforting because that is how I imagined many people writing. Now I know that is usually not how it happens. This made me realize that good writing just takes time. Some people might be better writers than others, but the way Lamott describes writing makes it seem that anyone can become good writer. I just need to take the time to write out my ideas to form an awful first draft that can later be revised into a “terrific” final…

    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Anne Lamott Summary

    • 341 Words
    • 1 Page

    In the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, she writes an excerpt, Shitty First Drafts, which is about the impact and importance of the first drafts of writing. Anne explains in the beginning of this excerpt that all writers write shitty first drafts and the drafts get better as you write more and work on the writing more. Lamott claims that “writing is not rapturous,” she explains that the only way that she can write anything well is to write a very bad first draft and just work on fixing that. She explains that sometimes you just have to type and get your ideas written out to be able to write a good piece of work. Once someone has been writing for so long, they have to have the ability to be able to just trust their writing process and understand that the first draft isn’t going to be perfect. Nothing is perfect on the first try, you have to keep working at it. Sometimes the first draft will be the worst thing someone thinks they have ever written, but they just have to go back to it and try to make it better and revise what is wrong. A writer has to start somewhere and they work from there. Just because the first draft is a bad draft doesn’t mean that the final work will be terrible. The first draft is the terrible draft, the second draft is the slightly better draft that has been picked through lightly to better, and the final draft is the “dental draft.” The dental draft is the draft that you really pick through and make sure that everything is perfect. In other words, the final product is checked “dentally” to make sure that it is “healthy” so that the final product is perfect. Lamott’s entire excerpt is just explaining that whether or not your first draft is perfect or not, the final product will definitely be better and more acceptable.…

    • 341 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Joseph Harris’ essay “Revising” (2006 pg.452-69); serves as a guide in how to correctly revise any writing you have ever completed. Harris designates four points that must be taken under consideration while revising. Before getting to the core of his argument, Harris notes that revising is not the same as editing. The essay points out that students are trained too just polish and make their writing sleeker rather than making a difference or significant change to the original. From there Harris brings up his first point stating that the author must decide what exactly it is that they are trying to convey. Harris believes the problem stems from that fact that many writers focus too much on correcting mistakes without thinking of what it is they…

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the article, “Shitty First Drafts”, Anne Lamott discusses the topic of writing what inspires the brain for a first draft is a valuable approach to compose a paper. Anne confesses specialized writers even await a response for a hint at writing their next scoop. However, when the writer has first attempt to begin writing perfection they experience dread and edginess. This is what the writers need to write the best they can. In order to wind up with great second drafts and phenomenal third drafts, fruitful authors should upchuck out their thoughts on paper. Stated by Anne, the first draft is called the “Childs draft” a mess of words only for one’s eyes. Subsequent to backpedaling and modifying the first draft, start to structure and adjust…

    • 174 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    She comes to understand that it is with our daily lives that we begin to find ourselves and realize that our words not only the text matter. One has to give their own authority and their own standpoint to make their point argumentative. Through personal life, methods of teaching and college experience does Sommers truly notice the change between her own authority and textual information. It is within us that truly makes a paper what it is. Our own authority should be our judgment. Between the drafts makes one comprehend what really happens between 2 papers. Drafts not only have to be papers but they can pertain to our own lives as well. Arguments begin with our own voices. Either the risk one takes or the risk they do not. It is with much evidence and disdain that Sommers truly presents her argument. One is lost between the words of the paper to make it seem less effective. Sommers uses effective writing techniques’ and much revision to make her thesis…

    • 936 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Eng/135 Week 3 Dq

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages

    2. When writing messages, why should you wait before you begin the revision process on a draft? Why is waiting sometimes difficult to do? What strategies could you use to overcome this difficulty?…

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Com 155 Week 2 Assignment

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Step three is revising. Revising allows the author to read what they have written again. It isn’t uncommon for the author to rearrange information, change or remove information to make their point clear; this helps their writing to be easier to understand.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chris Street wrote the article, “A Reluctant Writer’s Entry into a Community of Writers.” In Street’s introduction, he describes how he had a student named John who seemed angry, and didn’t seem to like writing. Finally, Street decided to change his ways of teaching his class. He began to let his students talk about what they cared about and what they knew, while he listened. This began to change his students writing.…

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nicholas Carr wrote a book "The Shallows", and a majority of the book is based on how our language has changed because most reading today is done online. Carr believes that the improvement in technology today, has a great impact on the way we speak, think, and read on a daily basis. In his book, Carr says that the internet and technology has in a way "remapped" the way our brain is used (Carr 5). Carr explains that even professional authors are falling into this, he uses a lot of flashbacks to authors in history, comparing them to todays authors, and he explains that as technology improved, we can see that many writers began to write with more "simplicity" (Carr 32). On the other hand, author Harvey Daniels, wrote that "language changes naturally" in the essay "The 9 Essentials to Language". Daniels believes that we should let the language change as we change, basically saying that language will not change unless we change. In his argument he is more of an author that says we just need to "relax", because we control our own language so don 't let it become something that overpowers…

    • 1203 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In fact, the majority of books that I’ve published have taken just about ten years to produce and revise. An article takes about two months— when you have the time that is— writing about four pages a day.” Warhol’s approach to creating and revising her composition begins by creating an idea draft, then proceeding to create the outline that she uses to construct her first draft— believing in the philosophy of “revising as you go.” As Warhol revises her work, she begins to share her article with others to get her first round of feedback. After the first round of feedback, Warhol goes through another round of revision on the entire manuscript, combing through every sentence as she works. After the second round of revisions are complete, Warhol sends her manuscript to the editor to undergo a round of peer review. Once she has received the notes from the peer review, Warhol performs her final round of revision before she submits her work to be…

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    First off, Criticism is one of the most important things to revision. Murray emphasizes and stresses the importance of peer…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The writing tasks you will complete in this assignment are based on real-world scenarios that describe a variety of situations.…

    • 4057 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Year 8 English Class

    • 2344 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Throughout the semester, the Year Eight class have studied figurative language, Shakespeare, persuasive and narrative writing, as well as reviewing the role punctuation plays in ensuring clarity in writing. Chloe is a very friendly and capable student who has consistently produced work of a solid Year Eight standard. She can sometime allow herself to be distracted in class, this means that she often runs out of time to effectively edit her work. As a result of this she sometimes misses punctuation and grammatical errors that could have easily been corrected. In order to improve, Chloe will need to re-evaluate her use of class time to ensure that she leaves herself enough time to carefully edit all tasks before she submits them. I wish her all the best for next year.…

    • 2344 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I have learned that revising your writing makes it way better than before. You find your mistakes and realize you can replace words such as “bring to” to a different high vocabulary word such as “cease”. I know now that there is no way to make your paper perfect. There will always be a word, words, or sentence you could change.In addition, I’ve gained a better understanding on passive and active sentences. Once I was done writing my paper, and began to reread it I found some passive sentences. All I did was revise the sentence which helped my writing flow better. Initially, I read the first paper I wrote for the Quarter 1 Writing Assessment and I noticed that I didn’t follow the directions completely. As I read on, there were many simple sentences and not many transitional words.…

    • 324 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    They Say I Say

    • 299 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Nadell, J., Langan, J.,& Comodromos, E. A. (2011). “Talk About Editing”. In The Longman Writer (pg. 292-294). Pearson…

    • 299 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays